Johannesburg - The day of reckoning for suspended National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega is drawing closer as an inquiry into her fitness to hold office is due to begin this week.
Phiyega is due to make her first appearance before a board of inquiry on Tuesday in Centurion, Pretoria. The inquiry would run until June 10 at the Law Reform Commission offices.
The inquiry was established by President Jacob Zuma following the recommendations by Judge Ian Farlam in his Marikana report released in June last year.
The recommendation was made after the Farlam Commission implicated senior police managers, including Phiyega, in the deadly events of August 16, 2012 in Marikana, where 34 miners were shot dead by the police.
Due to the report, Zuma said Judge Cornelis Claasen would be the chair of the board of inquiry assisted by advocates Bernard Khuzwayo and Anusha Rawjee.
The judge and his team were tasked with establishing whether Phiyega and her senior police managers had “misled the commission” and had done so to conceal their involvement in the deadly attacks.
Zuma also wanted the inquiry to probe that his office was also misinformed about a series of events which culminated on that particularly day and the police's alleged role in concealing those subsequent fatal events to him.
The board was established early in September last year and on September 28 Zuma wrote to Phiyega asking her to give him reasons why she should not be suspended.
In October, he placed Phiyega on suspension with full pay.
Phiyega has always maintained she was innocent, saying: “I did not lie and I am not a criminal.”
However, her legal troubles escalated after the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) laid criminal charges against her relating to her failure to submit all the information to the Farlam Commission. Phiyega responded and labelled the claims a “witch hunt”.
“Since my suspension last year in October 2015, I have watched with both shock and disappointment the relentless campaign to harass and convict me in the court of public opinion without regard for any due process.
“I find yesterday's announcement by the Acting Head of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate, Israel Kgamanyane, that charges are to be brought against me for allegedly defeating the ends of justice very concerning and opportunistic.
“According to what he said when he made the announcement the investigations are not complete, not only for me but for many others.
“The undignified haste to announce my imminent charging smacks of a sustained and concerted effort by the people and entities in the Police Ministry to continue with the relentless campaign that seeks to harass, slander and vilify me.” She was adamant that she heard all these claims against her through the media.
At the time, she said: “I truly believe that my rights as a citizen are violated.
The orchestrated character assassination is meant to destroy my credibility and reputation.
But most profoundly it is aimed at diverting my attention and resources from focusing on preparations for the inquiry into my fitness to hold office.”
Sunday Independent